Popular Business Quotes

Monday, September 26, 2011

Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We'll break out of it. It takes time.
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Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
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Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
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Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction.
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Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone's guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation.
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I always knew I was going to be rich. I don't think I ever doubted it for a minute.
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I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.
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I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.
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I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.
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I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
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I just think that - when a country needs more income and we do, we're only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that - that - when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.
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I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.
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I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of - of American capitalism.
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If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.
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If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end - people like myself - should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it.
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If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
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In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.
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In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
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It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
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It's better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you'll drift in that direction.
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It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.
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It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.
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Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
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Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.
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Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.
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Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
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Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.
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Our favorite holding period is forever.
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Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
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Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.
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Risk is a part of God's game, alike for men and nations.
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Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
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Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.
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Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
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The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
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The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.
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The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth.
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The only time to buy these is on a day with no "y" in it.
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The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.
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The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves-and the better the teacher, the better the student body.
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There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we've got a system that allows them to do it.
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There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
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Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.
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Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn't. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
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Value is what you get.
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Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.
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We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.
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We believe that according the name 'investors' to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a 'romantic.'
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We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.
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We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.
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We're still in a recession. We're not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out.
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We've used up a lot of bullets. And we talk about stimulus. But the truth is, we're running a federal deficit that's 9 percent of GDP. That is stimulative as all get out. It's more stimulative than any policy we've followed since World War II.
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When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
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When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
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Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful".
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Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
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You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.
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You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in - in 2007, we just didn't know it was uncertain. It was - uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn't know it.
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You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.
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Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it's not going to get the business.

A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.
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Apple's market share is bigger than BMW's or Mercedes's or Porsche's in the automotive market. What's wrong with being BMW or Mercedes?
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Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
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Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.
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I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.
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I want to put a ding in the universe.
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Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
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It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.
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It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now.
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Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only ones in this industry making money. They make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it by innovation.
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Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
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The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.
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To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.
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You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
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